Patient care becomes increasingly complex as hospitals increase capacity to treat individuals in both outpatient and inpatient settings. In particular, due to the large number of patients, staff and medical personnel, it is increasingly common for a patient to receive care from successive teams of caregivers, rather than a single individual or a group who follow the patient's treatment each day. A consequence of the greater number of patients and hospital personnel is an increase in the probability of error due to misidentification of the patient. Previous methods of verifying the identity of a patient in a treatment setting included visual inspection of an identity badge such as a wristband with written indicia. Similarly, in administering a drug or other treatment, the container is typically labeled with written indicia signifying the intended patient. Such methods are always subject to difficulties such as illegibility, destruction, loss and misassociation of such labels, potentially resulting in incorrect treatment of the patient.
Thus, an improved system and process for positively identifying a patient is needed. Further, an improved system and process for alerting medical care personnel to the presence of a person or object not associated with the patient is needed.